Mozia

Mozia is located on the island of San Pantaleo, in the Lagoon of Marsala. The island is located off the western coast of Sicily, between the Big Island and the mainland, and belongs to the Whitaker Foundation which, in 1875, he led the excavations which were obtained by numerous archaeological finds, now preserved in the museum of the island . Mozia was probably affected by the exploration of the merchants-Phoenician sailors who pushed in the western Mediterranean Sea, starting from the end of the twelfth century BC and had to be a landing point and a commercial basis. The name of Motya, probably given by the same Phoenicians, it would mean a spinning mill and would be linked to the presence of plants for the processing of wool. In 397 BC Dionysius the Elder, tyrant of Syracuse, besieged the city and puts an end to its existence. The inhabitants took refuge on the mainland colony of Lilybaeum, the current Marsala. The island comes to life only after the excavations of the English nobleman Giuseppe Whitaker. Today, you can visit the excavations by a footpath, the necropolis, the Tophet (an open-air sanctuary), the Cothon (a small rectangular reservoir connected to the sea by a narrow channel), the home of the amphorae and museum.